Leonard Leo: The Man Who Rebuilt the Supreme Court

A few months ago, we learned about a young man whose name we’re withholding, which is something we very rarely do, because he insists it’s for his safety.  This young Palestinian man is from a small village in the West Bank, and he grew up there with limited access to water and without a regular supply of electricity. Most of the kids he grew up with dropped out of school and went into manual labor. But this young man chose a different path. He won a scholarship to study abroad for college. He earned three degrees in three different countries. And then he landed a tech job with an Israeli company, of all places. (For context, among the 360,000 workers in the Israeli tech sector, there are only a few dozen Palestinians from the West Bank.) His story is one of setbacks, hardships, and discrimination, but also of hard work, perseverance, unlikely friendships, and in the end—against all odds—success.  But then his life was ruined. . . by a social media post. On October 7, he woke up in his home in the West Bank to the news of the massacre happening inside Israel. While some people in his community celebrated, he was horrified. He posted how he felt online: “What sad and horrible news to wake up to and out of words and unable to digest what’s going on right now. I’m Palestinian and firmly stand against this terror. I pray for the safety of my friends, colleagues, their loved ones, and everyone else affected.” He continued to post about how he felt—six posts in total. Suddenly, he says, 500 people unfollowed or unfriended him on social media sites. People blocked him on WhatsApp and, in real life, people just stopped speaking to him altogether.  And then, people started calling him a “traitor.” And as he said in this interview, the word traitor means something in the West Bank. “It means they are going to kill you.” Since that day, he hasn’t been able to commute to Israel to work. The crossings are closed and the work permits for Palestinians have been suspended. He stays home with his family, and he doesn’t go out because he says it’s just too dangerous. He feels isolated, unsafe, and scared for himself and for the safety of his family.  I often talk about courage, and about the courage to speak your mind even when it’s unpopular or dangerous. I often reference my personal heroes, people like Natan Sharansky or Masih Alinejad. But so few people are willing to walk in their footsteps in real time, in real life, when the stakes are the highest imaginable. My guest today is one of those people. Today, he explains where he gets the strength to speak up, even if it means risking his life, and why remaining silent in the face of the atrocities of October 7 would have made him no different from those who committed the crimes. One final note: if you’re a listener of this show, then you will understand how much this person needs our help. So, if you have a job opportunity that can provide sponsorship, please email contact2024m@gmail.com. And if you want to contribute to his relocation effort, you can support his GoFundMe. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Aug 20241h 22min

Never before have people felt more comfortable weighing in on other people’s lives. What diet to do, what to wear, how to make yourself attractive to the opposite sex, whether or not you should put money into that new crypto coin, if you should let your kids self-soothe, and on and on—but most of it, this endless supply of advice, is actually pretty bad. Weekly popular advice columns, like Dear Abby and Ask E. Jean, have vanished. And in their place is finger-wagging, political posturing, and straight-up bad tips. A New York Times reader sought advice on how to deal with her daughter, who is in a polyamorous relationship with a married man. She wrote, “My daughter tells me she would like to bring this man on our family trip to Greece this year. It may be petty, but I don’t want to foot the bill for another woman’s husband. And I don’t see any way this relationship can lead to my daughter’s happiness. Should I lay out my boundaries and risk my daughter not joining me on vacation?” Instead of saying what any sane person would, which is: “Get this man as far away from your daughter as possible,” The New York Times advised the mother to shut up and do better. “This is about respecting your adult daughter’s choices. As a show of respect, read up on polyamory before you broach the subject with her.” The thing is, we’re in an advice desert, but we’ve never been in greater need of good advice. Some people consult friends, therapists, or tarot readers when they need direction in life. Other people pray or go to confession. Many people seek the advice of a mentor. But at The Free Press, we like to visit this woman who lives on a hill in Pasadena and makes a mean onion dip. Her name is Caitlin Flanagan. You may have read her writing in The Atlantic, or you may have read her book Girl Land or On Thinking for Yourself. Caitlin is someone who has her finger on the pulse. Whether you’re reading her essays, her books, or her Twitter feed, she is just always right. So today, Free Press reporter Suzy Weiss and Atlantic writer Caitlin Flanagan are here to answer your questions about. . . everything, from relationships to politics to children to animals (yes, animals)! If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Aug 202458min

A few weeks ago, very few people outside of the Beltway and niche media circles had ever heard the name Tim Walz. Almost overnight, the relatively obscure governor from Minnesota started to gain traction thanks to a viral clip where he called J.D. Vance “weird.” It resonated with a lot of people. He came across as direct, plainspoken, and affable. And on Tuesday, August 6, Vice President Kamala Harris officially announced him as her running mate.  The conventional wisdom was that Harris would pick a moderate Democrat. But is Walz a true moderate? Because if you go online, there is a split screen reality about who Tim Walz actually is. On one side: Midwestern nice guy Democrat who grew up in a small town in Nebraska, is a National Guard vet, was a high school teacher, a football coach, a congressman, governor, and to top it all off, a gun owner and a hunter. Policy-wise, he’s worked with Republicans to pass infrastructure investments. He cut taxes for working families. He passed a law to provide paid family and medical leave to Minnesota families. But on the other side: he’s as radical as radical progressives come. Here are some policies cited to support that argument: during the pandemic, Walz set up a phone line so Minnesotans could report their neighbors for violating Covid rules. He allowed Minnesota’s health department to ration lifesaving Covid drugs based on race. Walz made Minnesota a “trans refuge state,” signing a law that allows the state to take custody of a child whose parents refuse “gender-affirming care.” He also established a council to implement DEI training in statewide agencies. And after George Floyd’s murder, he said: “My administration will use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in Minnesota.” This, as the city was burning. Then, there is the secondary story of Tim Walz, which is not about Tim Walz at all. Until Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro appeared to be the frontrunner as a charismatic, handsome, and moderate governor from a key battleground state the Democrats need to win. Why didn’t Kamala choose Shapiro? Did anti-semitism play a role? To explain all of this are three of my favorite writers and thinkers: Free Press contributor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik, and Free Press columnist Joe Nocera (or, as he likes to be called, our in-house-liberal). Suffice it to say, they all have very different opinions on Walz. Today: Who is Tim Walz? Why did Kamala Harris land on him? What does this choice say about the state of the Democratic Party? And in the race toward the White House, does it even matter? If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Aug 202458min

Last month, we ran an episode here by one of our amazing reporters, Eli Lake, that took us back to the tumultuous year of 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson dropped out of his own reelection race, and the resulting turmoil at the Democratic convention that followed that summer in Chicago. At the time of that episode, of course, Biden was still in the race, and Eli was guiding us through that history lesson in order to help us make sense of the present moment, and to indicate what might happen next.  Today, Eli is back on Honestly to do what he does best: look back in time and help us make sense of our baffling present. VP Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. She has the wind at her back, though she hasn’t given a single interview, and every day someone else announces they’ve been coconut-pilled. But in her anointment to the top of the ticket, there’s been a strange and silent rewriting of history by the press and party loyalists with the support of a lot of tech companies, who together are changing our collective understanding of the present and of the very recent past. Eli argues this has happened before. And not in America. . . but in the Soviet Union, and also in the works of brilliant writers like Milan Kundera and George Orwell, who imagined something, he argues, like what we’re seeing right now. While that might sound like hyperbole, listen and decide for yourself. Because whether you agree or disagree with Eli’s conclusions, I’m confident you will learn so much from listening to this episode. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Aug 202441min

On Monday, the markets had one of its worst trading days since the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks tumbled around the world, with a global sell-off, amid fears of a recession. The VIX (an index often called “Wall Street’s Fear Gauge”) was at times today as high as we saw it when the economy was shutting down for Covid.  This comes on the tail of a pretty insane news cycle: a presidential assassination attempt, Joe Biden dropping out of the race, the coronation of a new Democratic nominee, a stolen election (actually) in Venezuela, a Middle East on the brink of war. . . should I go on? But the most pressing issue to most Americans is and always has been the economy.  And with everything else going on, many of us have been paying far too little attention to the economic story here at home, and the policies that may have brought us to this moment we find ourselves in today.  To explain how we got here is Larry Summers. Summers was Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, and he was the director of the National Economic Council under President Obama. He was president of Harvard for five years. And he is one of the world’s most prominent economists.  Today: What is going on in the market? What caused it? Was it avoidable? What happens next? And what are the long-term repercussions?  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Aug 202436min

Today, we have a special story from two friends and former Free Pressers, Andy Mills and Matt Boll. They have a new podcast, Reflector, that I think you’re going to love, and we’re sharing an episode where they look at some of the hidden truths and misconceptions about alcoholism and how to treat it. Alcohol consumption increased more during the Covid years than it had at any time in the past 50 years. In fact, Americans were drinking so much that from 2020 through 2021, there were approximately 178,000 alcohol-related deaths, which is more deaths than from all drug overdoses combined, including opioids. And yet most Americans with a drinking problem never speak to their doctors about their drinking, and fewer than 6 percent of them receive any form of treatment whatsoever. Today, a woman named Katie tells the story of her self-experimentation with a little-known but highly effective drug to combat her alcohol addiction. It’s not only an incredibly moving story of one woman’s journey but it also gets to the bigger question of why these types of medications aren’t widely used in America, and it challenges everything we know about alcoholism and how to treat it. Check out Reflector wherever you get your podcasts, or by going to reflector.show and becoming a subscriber.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com/subscribe and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Aug 202457min

On Saturday afternoon, a Hezbollah rocket fired from southern Lebanon struck a soccer field in the village of Majdal Shams in Israel’s north, slaughtering 12 children. For the last 10 months, many have warned that Israel is on the brink of a major war with Hezbollah. But the truth is that Hezbollah has been fighting—and winning—in Israel’s north since October 8. For the past 10 months, Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terror group that controls southern Lebanon, has essentially redrawn the northern border of Israel by pummeling the border towns daily with rockets, leaving 225 square miles unlivable for Israelis and displacing around 80,000 Israeli citizens. Israel—pounded by Iranian proxies from all directions—now faces one of the most perilous moments in recent history. The prospect of an all-out war with Hezbollah, which could very well spread to a larger, more dangerous regional war—perhaps directly with Iran—seems closer than ever.  What is Israel going to do? Will Israel choose to confront Hezbollah, or will they respond in a more limited way to avoid the regional escalation that the Americans so fear? How does U.S. policy, and the upcoming presidential election, influence Israel’s strategic calculation? Is Kamala Harris equipped to bring calm to the region? Or are Israelis just waiting for Trump to return to office? Is America’s current policy—which is the containment of Iran—backfiring and inadvertently creating a regional crisis? Most importantly, should we be thinking about the war with Gaza and the war with Hezbollah as discrete fights, or are they all part of a broader war that’s already underway between Israel and Iran? Answering those questions today is Haviv Rettig Gur. Haviv is a journalist and writer for The Times of Israel, and he is one of the most important and insightful thinkers of our time on Israel and the Middle East. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com/subscribe and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Juli 20241h 14min

Most of the media-verse right now is focused on a handful of serious and important questions: Kamala’s VP pick, if Democrats have been anti-Democratic, if Kamala can receive Biden’s campaign money without a legal battle. And whether or not China will see the opportunity of our lame-duck president to make moves against Taiwan. But today we aren’t here to talk about any of that. Today we’re here to talk about memes and whether or not Kamala Harris is “brat.” On Sunday, July 21, we found out that President Joe Biden was stepping down from the race because he posted a letter on X. Then, 23 minutes later he endorsed Kamala Harris as the nominee and that was it.  Days went by, and we didn’t see him or hear from him. And we’re all supposed to accept that as normal. And in his absence something really strange happened. Kamala Harris became a Gen Z icon. Kamala became “brat.” And if you’re anything like me, you’re not exactly following. So, let us explain: the singer Charli XCX posted Sunday on X that “Kamala IS brat,” a reference to her new album called Brat. Which, for those who don’t know, according to Gen Z, is this summer’s official vibe and aesthetic. Don’t worry, if you still aren’t following, neither are the talking heads on CNN or Fox. But whether they understand it or not, Kamala’s campaign does. Her staff changed her campaign’s X page to the brat chartreuse color (the album’s theme color), with the words “Kamala HQ” to match the Brat album cover.  The internet went crazy. Just take the video of a group of men in Fire Island in chartreuse crop tops that say “kamala” in the brat font. The caption on the tweet: “BRAT Kamala shirts already on Fire Island. The gays move SO FAST.” And it wasn’t just brat that went viral, we’ve also seen a repacking of viral clips overnight: the coconut quote, Kamala loving Venn diagrams, and a whole lot of Kamala laughing. As the internet was off to the races, mainstream politicians were forced to make a choice: embrace the Twitter-sphere or ignore it. And most chose the former. Hawaiian senator Brian Schatz endorsed Kamala on X simply by posting a photo of himself climbing a coconut tree, the caption reading: “Madam Vice President, we are ready to help.” Colorado governor Jared Polis simply posted a tweet with a coconut emoji, a palm tree emoji, and an American flag emoji. Senator Mazie K. Hirono posted a photo with Kamala with the brat chartreuse filter on it. Clearly a unique consensus has emerged. As Katherine Boyle wrote for The Free Press this week, “The online and offline are finally merging.”   It’s fun, it’s trippy, it’s campy, it’s weird, but the question remains, will any of this translate to actual votes?  To help us better understand are two Free Press writers—River Page and Kat Rosenfield. This week for The Free Press, River explained how the phrase “Twitter isn’t real life” has never seemed less true and that “Twitter is now the center of the country’s political universe. For better or worse.” And Kat made the case that Kamala is brat, but not in the way we think, and she’s not so sure it’s a good thing.  The internet moves fast, but River and Kat move faster, and they’re here today to help us dissect it all: the meme-ification of politics, brat, and how internet culture is rewiring election norms.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com/subscribe and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Juli 202459min